104 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Beets and other esculent vegetables, 3,853 acres; 



average yield per acre, 325 bushels, . . . 1,252,225 

 Potatoes, 41,982 acres ; average yield per acre, 93 



bushels, 3,904,326 



6,320,728 



Head of stock owned in the State, four hundred and eighty- 

 seven thousand — population one million — showing a product 

 equal to about four bushels for every head of stock fed and to 

 supply the wants of one million of inhabitants. 



The largest average yield of carrots has been in Hampshire 

 County, 616 bushels to the acre; the soil cultivated, deep sandy 

 loam ; eight cords barnyard compost manure used to the acre. 

 The smallest yield was in one of the shore counties, upon a 

 light sandy soil, 220 bushels per acre. The manure used in 

 Barnstable County is six cords of compost of fish, sea-weed, and 

 barnyard manure. The product on one-fourth of an acre thus 

 manured, was reported by Joshua Crowell to be 13,840 pounds 

 of carrots. The cost of manuring, cultivating and harvesting, 

 at $23.35. Value of the crop, at ten dollars per ton, $69.20. 

 Profit on the quarter acre, $45.85. The returns from Hampden 

 County, in 1851, from the accounts kept upon three farms, 

 gave the average cost of raising carrots, at thirteen and one-half 

 cents per bushel. Returns from Hampshire County, in 1852, 

 showed the average cost then to have been (using eight cords 

 manure to the acre,) thirteen cents per bushel. The returns 

 from Worcester County, the same year, show a probable cost 

 of ten cents per bushel for raising. 



In Essex County carrots have been cultivated on good land, 

 using compost, six cords to the acre, half leached ashes, the 

 other half barnyard manure, giving a product of 992 bushels 

 per acre. The largest yield stated (in the volumes before 

 mentioned,) in this county, has been twenty-five tons of carrots 

 to the acre, gathered from a loamy soil, manured six cords to 

 the acre, compost half leached ashes and half barnyard manure. 

 The largest yield reported from Hampshire County, 1857, 

 (barnyard compost eight cords to the acre applied to the land,) 

 was twenty-seven tons from one acre. This crop was cultivated 

 in rows fourteen inches apart — hand culture. The carrot crop 



